Here’s what we know about upcoming SNAP rule changes : NPR

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is promising major changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which currently helps about 42 million Americans afford groceries.

In a recent media appearance, he said the focus on SNAP during the government shutdown “has given us a platform to completely dismantle the program” and said details about structural changes to the program would be released this week.

Rollins has made the case for sweeping changes to SNAP, claiming that his agency has uncovered “massive fraud” in the state data the agency sought, and has emphasized statistics suggesting wrongdoing without providing the underlying data or details.

The Trump administration’s latest push for changes to SNAP comes as millions of recipients are already set to lose benefits in the coming years as states begin implementing new work requirements and eligibility rules that Republicans in Congress passed over the summer that are the deepest cuts in the program’s history.

In a Fox Business interview last month, Rollins said other changes she is proposing would “make sure that those vulnerable Americans who really need that benefit get that benefit. And for all the rest of the fraudsters and people who are corrupt and taking advantage of it — we’re going to protect the taxpayers, too.”

Food policy experts say they are concerned that Rollins’ talk suggests a distorted view of the prevalence of fraud by SNAP recipients, and appears to link fraud with payment errors of any kind.

“My concern is that she risks setting a public narrative that this is a program that has more fraud than it actually has, or that people who need it and use it to meet their basic food needs are somehow committing a crime by asking for food assistance,” said Stacey Dean, executive director of the Global Food Institute at George Washington University and a former U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) official during the Biden administration.

Dean said, “And it’s just that it’s not good for the program. It’s absolutely terrible for the people who need it.”

Rollins’ comments in recent weeks that everyone on SNAP would have to reapply caused confusion among SNAP recipients, state officials and food policy experts. SNAP recipients already have to go through a recertification process — in most cases every six or 12 months, and it’s unclear what legal authority the USDA would have to add additional steps.

A group of Democratic U.S. senators sent a letter last month asking Rollins to clarify what they meant, pointing out that SNAP faces “unprecedented cuts” and additional uncertainty after the Trump administration halted SNAP payments during the shutdown.

“We are therefore concerned that the Administration may choose at this time to add additional red tape that creates duplicative and unnecessary barriers for families to access nutrition assistance,” the letter reads.

USDA officials appear to be backing away from the suggestion that there will be a new reapplication process for SNAP recipients. A statement from the agency indicated that it plans to use existing recertification protocols.

A statement from a USDA spokesperson said, “Secretary Rollins wants to ensure that fraud, waste, and persistent abuse of SNAP ends. Fraud rates have only previously been acknowledged, and President Trump is doing something about it.” “Using standardized recertification processes for homes is one part of that work. As well as continued analysis of state data, further regulatory work and better collaboration with states.”

Rollins’ claims exposed

Earlier this year, the USDA made unprecedented demands on states to hand over personal data on SNAP recipients. Most Democratic-led states refused, and a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the USDA from withholding funding from states that did not comply and found that the federal agency’s data demands were likely unlawful.

But 28 states and Guam have turned over the data, according to a USDA spokesperson, and Rollins has been citing figures from that data in several media appearances in recent weeks as evidence that the food assistance program needs to be overhauled.

In a recent News Nation interview, Rollins said state data showed that “186,000 dead people are getting benefits, 500,000 Americans are getting double the benefits, so double what they should be getting. We’ve arrested over 120 people with SNAP fraud,” Rollins said.

“And that doesn’t include the majority of blue states where we believe there is even more fraud and abuse. And under the previous administration, SNAP benefits increased 40%. So clearly, it’s important to have a right size.”

The USDA has not presented data supporting these statistics, making it difficult to evaluate their significance.

For example, some deceased individuals will be mandated to be enrolled in the program because state officials must verify the death and provide time for the family to respond before reducing or terminating SNAP benefits. Families who receive payments by mistake upon someone’s death will have to return the money.

As for people receiving two benefit payments, the specifics of the cases cited by Rollins are still unknown, but in court filings a California state official listed several legitimate explanations for why this could happen — including giving supplemental payments to a SNAP family to correct an error.

It’s also not clear what Rollins means when she says SNAP benefits have increased 40% under the Biden administration. The USDA did not respond to a question seeking clarification.

The department announced that SNAP payments would be expanded by 40% in April 2020 due to the pandemic during President Trump’s first term.

Lauren Bauer, an economic studies fellow at the Brookings Institution and associate director of the Hamilton Project, analyzed USDA data but could not find evidence of a 40% increase under Biden. Instead, they found that benefit costs increased by more than 30% during Trump’s presidency, while they decreased by about 17% during Biden’s tenure.

“The dynamics of profit increases and decreases are not really about the presidency. It’s about the business cycle and where we are in terms of the recession and coming out of it,” Bauer said.

More SNAP changes coming

A draft of a regulation that the USDA submitted to the Office of Management and Budget last month may provide a clue to one of the changes to SNAP that the Trump administration may soon unveil.

The draft calls for limiting “broad-based categorical eligibility” for SNAP, which is currently used by more than 40 states to ensure that welfare recipients can receive SNAP.

Researchers at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute have argued that this eligibility rule should be eliminated because states are using it to allow people with incomes above the limits set by the SNAP statute to receive benefits. However he also warned that ending broad-based categorical eligibility should be done in a way that addresses “barriers to benefits” that would discourage people from earning slightly more because they would lose benefits and be worse off.

Katie Berg, a senior policy analyst at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who has criticized the potential change, estimates that about 6 million people could lose SNAP benefits from such a policy change.

“At every opportunity, the administration is looking for additional ways to attack anti-hunger programs,” Berg said.